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Most everyone who knows me knows I rarely find myself speechless, but for as long I’ll live, I can never for the life of me know what kind of words can be said to comfort those who are mourning the death of a loved one.

This week, one of my classmates passed away and it wasn’t expected and it wasn’t an accident– it was a tragedy. I didn’t have to know him well to know what his passions in life were. From his Facebook posts to the conversations we would have every so often when I saw him, I knew there were two things he lived for: being a marine and tattoos. And beyond passing at such a young age, maybe the most tragic thing is how unjust and undignified it was for a marine, who served our country not once, but three times overseas, to die a mere civilian death.

Mortality is the cruelest trick of fate. It only takes one thing for it all to be over and it’s scary because there are no rules about who can die when, there are no explanations of what happens next, and it’s 100% inescapable.

We go through life and have all kinds of experiences that are highly emotional, good or bad. But no matter what, we keep on living. With every shitty thing that happens to us, even the things that make us wish we were dead, there is a lesson to be learned, a story to be told, a memory to be made, but most of all, a second chance to do it over again. Not with death. Death is final. The only people left to learn the lesson are the people left behind here on Earth.

This world has an ironic sense of humor in that every death, there is a life lesson. Even if it’s just the reconfirmation that you should tell the people you love that you love them while they can still hear you. Or not to go to bed angry in case anything should happen. Or not to put off tomorrow that which you can do today. Or not to text and drive…whatever it may be. And in a way, he still sacrificed his young life for us– intentional or not– to teach us something about living. Be passionate about something. Chase your dreams while you still can.

I didn’t have to be his best friend to know exactly what he wanted to do. He talked about it, dedicated his time to it, he lived it. He dreamt of becoming a marine and so he did. He wanted to be a tattoo artist and so, he became a human display of his art.

The last time we had an actual worthwhile conversation was back in December. I just completed my master’s degree and he was working in the kitchen at my dad’s restaurant. We must’ve talked about tattoos for 15 minutes, mind you, I have none. All I can think about is how we talked about tattoos for so long because, though I had just finished my second degree, I had no idea what I wanted to do and Cory knew exactly what he wanted to do. And that’s how I’ll remember him.

Sometimes, even I have to remind myself of the things I claim to feel about relationships and boys. And/or men. Most of the time, I feel pretty invincible, like nothing that any guy does could affect me negatively. I like to ignore the things they do that I don’t like, which usually includes anything they might do that doesn’t involve them liking me a lot. But, even for those of us who don’t care about finding their “someone” anytime soon, I think our pendulum swings every once in a while still.

Very, very rarely do I ever feel like a person who needs anyone. Probably because, admittedly, more often than not, I do always have someone. Not just talking about guys here, I mean girls, too. I’m constantly surrounded by good friends, which helps a person not to feel like they are alone…because they’re not.

Usually good friends aren’t good enough for people though. It’s like they want something more, which boils down to they want someone from the opposite sex. They wanna feel wanted and that’s okay. But for me, for the most part, I’m okay with just friends. It keeps me occupied and I don’t mind going to bed alone. If I can’t find someone I actually want to lounge around with all weekend on a couch, then I’d rather just not do that with anyone but myself.

But, like I said…everyone has that moment when the pendulum swings and you go into full blown “think mode.” And I am clearly a thinker. My thoughts aren’t always rational, but a healthy dose of freaking out never hurt anyone. Typically there is a certain person who will start the wheels turning in my head and typically, it’s a bad situation for me.

I’m normal in the fact that I like being in control of situations. I like having the upper hand on someone. I like the ball in my court. I hate losing control of the ball, and I’ve done that plenty of times. In any given case when that happens, it’s easy for me to drop it and move on. It might take a week or two, but I most definitely can hold it together and forget it afterwards.

What I’m currently experiencing is not. the. same. At this point in time, not only is the ball in his court, I’ve fouled out of the game…I’m not even playing anymore.

Now, I can’t speak for men, but as far as women go, no matter WHAT AGE, every girl wants to feel like she’s worth fighting for. And beyond that, I’ve managed to convince myself I actually am worth that fight, so when a guy doesn’t put in any effort, I get really fucking offended. Yes, your apathy offends me. I don’t need romance and crap like that, I just want someone who isn’t dismissive and self-absorbed because that leaves no room for me to step in and blow you away by how interesting, smart, funny, etc. etc. etc. I am.

HOWEVER, having said that…I’d prefer to know up front if a guy is an asshole rather than going through this big long beginning and then getting to the middle of ups and downs. I truly hate roller coasters, whether they’re emotional or at an amusement park, I legitimately hate all kinds of roller coasters. So anyway, my point is that if a guy is just straight up about being an ass, we can skip over all the garbage and I can just walk away from the get go. Saves everybody time.

But, here I am, stuck on some jerk off that I can’t walk away from for one (or several) reason or another.

For as much as this situation sucks though, it’s really funny. I feel like I say that about all the shitty situations I find myself entangled in, but that’s only because in the grand scheme of things, relationship issues are so trivial. They’re so avoidable if we just play the game right, but we all slip up from time to time and that’s when you find yourself watching every season of Grey’s Anatomy back to back on Saturday nights.

And it all begins with a facebook message.

I try not to make it a habit to use facebook as a dating tool, but sometimes you just can’t help it. This guy…we’ve nicknamed him Skeeting…he writes me a facebook message. And, grammar and spelling errors aside, it was a really sweet message. Not that I need compliments, but he said all the right stuff and I was having a shitty start to my summer, what with school and all, and the dude was super freaking hot (bonus), so I messaged him back. Nothing really came of it for a few months (unbeknownst to me because he had a girlfriend so she probably threw a wrench into whatever his plan was for contacting me) until somehow, I don’t really know how, but we met out for drinks.

It was kind of a short meeting, I think. I can’t remember. But it was nothing special. Not really a bad or good first impression. I do remember that he was wearing white tennis shoes with jeans and I didn’t like that, but as I mentioned before, he was super hot so whatevs.

We decided to go out on another date, which he doesn’t like calling a “date” because he thinks it sounds old fashioned. So Skeeting took me to dinner. Dinner was fine. We talked, which is more than I can say we do now that we see each other on a daily basis. It was the part afterward that made me want to bolt for the door.

In his defense, he is a very hard person to read. And when mama has a few drinks in her, she isn’t great at reading people anyway on TOP of him being a monotoned, unreadable person. The “date” ended up being a total disaster. Like, I haaaaated him. I thought he was such a jerk I couldn’t even stand being around him. I felt like I was in the twilight zone with an incredibly hot, yet intolerable human. So after that, I ignored all of his texts and all of his phone calls and never talked to him again.

The end.

Yeah right, I wish “the end.” Anyway, knowing what I just told you, perhaps you’ll read the rest of this and think I totally deserve what I’m going through. And that’s fine because maybe I do. But I never do things to a person maliciously. Not talking to someone after a first date or a second “hang out” isn’t mean. No one is attached, no one cares, it’s clean and fine and normal. He was slightly persistent afterwards in trying to hang out again, but eventually he stopped texting and that was that.

So don’t ask me what possessed me to ever EVER text him again nearly 6 months later, but I did. Poor decision making could’ve played a part in it but I was ignorant at the time to what I was getting myself into. I’m not even sure what the hell I was expecting of it, but what I got was a total mess.

So once we rekindled our “friendship,” he asked me a few times to hang out with him and it never happened but at least at this point we were on speaking terms. Or texting terms in this day and age. He said he’d call me or whatever a bunch of times to hang out and never did, again unbeknownst to me because he had an on and off girlfriend (same one!) that probably foiled whatever plans he had with me. And then he finally got around to asking me if I’d be interested in working for him, to which this poor girl said yes. Worst mistake of my adult life. Seriously though, it’s been an uphill battle from there.

I don’t even know how it happened. It’s like we were working together peacefully and I found out about his on and off girlfriend and I totally respected that and drew lines. All kinds of lines. So many lines. Then it was like we would run an errand together. And then we might drive somewhere together. And we started spending other time together. Obviously I know it’s a bad idea to even mess with the boss. I’m like a Grey’s Anatomy psycho fanatic and that’s the golden rule, but knowing something is bad for me doesn’t tend to stop me. And besides, I had total control over the situation because I didn’t like him. He had a girlfriend and all kinds of other crap.

So then things start getting really messed up. He tells me that him and his “on and off again” girlfriend are over. He also said a lot of other stuff which I would later find out is total and complete bullshit. LIKE, TELL ME WHY IT’S EVEN WORTH SAYING SHIT YOU DON’T MEAN? I didn’t ASK him to say stuff to me or want him to or whatever. He just freely lied all on his own. For amusement or something. Like his life is so mundane that making shit up is the best thing he can do to entertain himself. Play Angry Birds. Or WWF. Or Draw Something…like a normal person.

“I don’t wanna be single I wanna be with you.” Then BE WITH me, fucker. “I wanna show you that you can trust me.” THEN DO THAT. I don’t know why I’m so surprised that this slime shit asshole, who has made a living off of deceitfulness, was lying to me. No, it’s not that I’m surprised, because I totally expected this. In fact, I’m pretty sure I even said that to him. It’s that I don’t know why I’m still disappointed. And the act of being disappointed just means that I’m clinging on to some kind of hope that he will prove me wrong. Like he will somehow emerge out of a dark, scary forest perched on a galloping white horse as my prince charming knight in shining whatever. We do that. It is pathetic.

So anyway, one night we are at his place drinking a beer before we were going over to his parent’s house. Yeah, I met the family for a split second. And as we are doing nothing wrong but drinking a beer AT HIS PLACE, his “non” girlfriend just walks in. Like with her own set of keys to his apartment. And of course he gave me some bullshit story about how he didn’t know she had them. So we left and I was pissed the entire time because even though I wasn’t his girlfriend, I don’t appreciate being lied to. Especially if someone is doing it with no regard for my feelings and totally just to benefit his situation.

Needless to say, we got in a big fight that night and I’m sure he got more than a taste of how big of a pain in the ass I can be. And that’s fine because I feel like guys should know that before entering into anything with me, they should know that I set a standard and I expect them to live up to it. That doesn’t make me a bitch or high maintenance or impossible to please…it means I see something in someone and I am trusting them to be the person I think they are. That should be a compliment to anyone that someone else believes you have the potential to be a great person, maybe even worth loving. It’s like that saying “be the person your dog thinks you are.” And I should’ve known he’d be an asshole because he has a cat.

So we made up from that point on. He was putting on his nice guy act and I totally ate it up. Like an idiot. Plus I had nothing better to do. I resisted at first. Then he started to ignore me and that is my kryptonite. When I want to talk something out, ignoring me is a sure way to make me really go all Casey Anthony on your ass. Minus the first degree murder and stuff.

But of course, no relationshit would be complete without it’s fair share of super drama from his ex (questionable?) girlfriend who is like, thirteen. She sends me this facebook message and I tried to be all nice and compassionate or whatever because I’ve been in her position before except worse but she was an asshole anyway, not like I really give two shits.

I have to say, she did have the decency to warn me that he is a lying piece of dirt, so there’s that. As if I didn’t already know that, though. And if I didn’t, his disinterest in the fact that his ex messaged me gave it away that there was a distinct possibility that any involvement with him would end poorly.

But it was nice to have confirmation that she was out of the picture for any idiot (Alia enters scene) to proceed with any kind of canoodling with him, bad idea as it may be. And then there is that other part of me that blames her slightly for allowing him to treat her like a doormat for so long, now he feels entitled to do that to the rest of us, no thank you.

I’m not totally innocent, but I’m not totally guilty. In fact, I believe I get myself into these rough situations because I give guys such a hard time up front. Yes, I did give this guy way too much credit and way too much slack, but we fought a lot because I questioned his shady behavior. If I really wanted this to go somewhere, I would’ve ignored it only to set myself up for miserable failure later. Why do other girls turn their cheeks? Call that shit out.

Anyway, so we never really spoke about things, which as you all know I am chatty. Super, super chatty and like to talk about lots and lots of chatty things. But he kind of did some things that were like expediting the relationship process. There were serious steps he took and serious steps he totally skipped, but I was alright with it for a while thinking perhaps there would be a moment when we had a necessary conversation for clarity. But that never happened and as my frustration grew, my emotional stability shrank. Plus it was that time of the month.

So I had this like kind of mini meltdown and gave back the keys to his apartment and left in the middle of the night and I was all upset and shit. The next day at work was the worst. I kept expecting things to be super awkward and they were (for me), because he didn’t show up for a really long time, and then when he got there they were so normal it creeped me out. It was like nothing had happened. Ew, so weird.

And we hung out a few more times, which I tried initiating some kind of conversation but it didn’t work and of course I became increasingly frustrated by it. A grown man should be able to talk. And what was worse was that any kind of chasing he may have been doing before had totally flipped. Flipped hard. And that is always the worst when that happens. Not only could I tell his interest in me was deteriorating for inexplicable reasons, but he was totally insulting me by lying to me and thinking I was stupid enough to believe him.

Particularly, one night I was sitting on his couch… I’m not the type to snoop. I did that when I was like 21, but now it’s just tacky. If you have to snoop, your answer lies in your snooping, whether you find something or not. You don’t trust the person so don’t be with them. Anyway, by the fate of God, some girl texts him and his phone lights up and I’m sorry, but it’s just a reaction to look down at the bright shiny thing. And it’s not just a girl; it’s a girl he referred to as “baby” and “baby” said she wanted to see him.

EW my appendix hurts just thinking about how fucking grossed out I am about guys. Because I straight up confronted him and he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about.

Real smooth, Rico Suave.

And the other things I noticed were how he doesn’t answer his phone on certain days or past a certain time and then gets a hold of you the next day like “oh baby I’m sorry my phone was off and I magically slept for 29 hours but I’m getting a hold of you now” aka the girl you were with all weekend just left your apartment. Yeah.

The unique situation I found myself in is not one I’ve been in before. Normally, if a dumbass is too big of a dumbass to realize I’m a catch, I walk away and let him figure it out in my absence. If he never does, I don’t really care because I tend to forget about people who aren’t in my life for more than 3 weeks. But this dumbass is special in that he is my boss and I work 6 feet away from him 5 days a week.

I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what it is….because it’s not sadness. I don’t feel sad that we didn’t work out. I feel sad because of the disappointment. For even having to go through it again. For feeling hopeful about another person, again, and being wrong. I mean, honestly there is a little bruising of the ego because there was a person who wanted me, whom I did not want, then I did, and he didn’t want me back anymore. Yes, that always sucks, but not as much as being wrong sucks.

Not..

I can take someone getting over their crush they had on me. I can even handle the fact that he probably doesn’t like me after getting to know what a looney toon I am, because he is but one man in a world full of men. It really is just that misjudgment that I hate that I have. Why do I waste my time on a person or waste emotions on a person? Thankfully, these things never last long. I haven’t lost much time or much of anything. Maybe a friend. And in this case, quite possibly my job…but now I have a solid reassurance that my judgment is no better now than it was with my last failure.

I should’ve listened to my instincts in the first place. They were impeccable. Picked up on the asshole vibe right away. It just goes to show how terrible and unwarranted second chances really are. It’s fine that I tried to make something work that was so obviously unworkable. But giving people second chances is just stupid. It’s like that on and off again relationship stuff…I did it when I first started playing the dating game, and it only took me twice to know that if it doesn’t work the first time, it won’t work the second time.

Let me tell you what I’m over…I’m over dudes who think they mean more to me than they actually do. I don’t have time to play with little boys who need an ego boost for whatever reason.

You think you want a relationship with me? Fine. But you once you start thinking I want a relationship with you, then we have a problem.

Money, cars, and cribs can’t make up for anything you’re lacking so try again. You’re not cool, you’re not even that attractive, and you’re certainly not on my level.

It’s amazing how guys bitch and moan and complain and whine about everything….EVERYTHING….but when a girl starts talking about something, all of the sudden she is a drama queen. Literally, tonight some dude was talking about how this girl he liked was at a bar and another girl he didn’t like who liked him was at this party and oh my god and BLAH BLAH BLAH…the moment my friend asked me a question about someone I was texting, because I mentioned someone from the opposite sex this dude starts acting all “oooh my gosh you’re such a drama queen” though nothing I said was dramatic at all. And he also was interrupting a conversation he was never asked to participate in. Double dick head move.

So guys think it’s hard to be with girls because we are emotional and dramatic? Then explain how once you find a girl who just wants to hang out and have fun, nothing serious and NEVER mentions the word “relationship” you still manage to freak out? i.e. long story short, after everything, Shiva texts me “you deserve someone better who can spend the time with you. I’m just not ready for a relationship.”

1) Yeah, obviously I deserve better. You are a place holder. If you were good enough, I’d be dating you exclusively. There’s a good explanation as to why I’m also seeing 5-10 other guys at all times.

2) The main reason I liked you is because I didn’t have to spend every waking moment with you.

3) I asked him “when did I ever say I wanted a relationship?” to which he responds ” you didn’t but…” YEAH, bingo….moron. If I didn’t bring it up, take that hint. You were cool to hang out with but don’t get carried away.

Conclusion?

There are two kinds of people in this world: dependent and independent. Guys are annoyed with the dependent girls because…well, they’re annoying. And then they just don’t know how to handle someone who is independent? Is that it? Like they’re not quite sure what to do when they’re not needed?

Ew. If that’s the case, I’m cool remaining single because I can promise that I will never find a guy whom Ineed. They can’t even take care of themselves. What purpose do guys have besides buying me drinks and dinner? None BYE.

Okay here is what I don’t understand…from my perspective, if I’m faced with two options– the hard road and the easy road– I would most definitely like to take the easy road. If I can make it from Point A to Point B with minimal effort, that’s what I’m going to do. So why is it that there are so many people out there who insist on making easy solutions difficult?

Let me be more specific. If you are willingly in a relationship, then you’ve taken on the role as a “significant” other. A very generic job description is to be supportive, spend time with that person, and be honest. If you’re exclusive, you’re theirs only and vice versa. And then it’s that simple. You do what you are supposed to do. And when you don’t want to do that anymore, quit. Break up with them.

Alright my point is, it takes more effort to be a shady, lying, piece of shit than it does to just be a genuine person. The process of being shady and lying is so exhausting and unnecessary that I don’t understand why people go through the trouble.

Here’s how I see it (pretty much).

Step one: You get yourself into a situation where you spend a little time contemplating, or at least wondering whether you’ll get caught or not. Then you think, how will I get caught? Is someone else gonna rat me out? Will someone see? Will I admit to it? And so on….

Step Two: Now you have to think, alright, if I get caught, what’s the story gonna be? And then you have to put this creative thinking cap on to figure out how you can deny that you did something shitty and make it sound believable. You might even have to recruit other people to go along with it and that’s just more time and more effort.

Step Three: This could go one of two ways. If you’re a normal human with a guilty conscience so you’ll feel crappy about it and it will weigh heavy on your mind for a while. You’ll be a little paranoid wondering if the other person really is going to find out or if you pulled off the move (congratulations on mastering the art of deceit). This was a little easier to get away with when then World Wide Web didn’t saturate our lives in every aspect. So the alternative is, you get caught.

Step Four: All hell breaks loose. You’re telling them one story, other people are telling them another. Being that you’re clearly not a genius for having done something stupid in the first place, you usually forget to cover all corners and so you have to start tweaking your story. Alright so now the person doesn’t trust you. You’re fighting…ugh, so exhausting….you’re ruining your good time…more exhausting crap…now other people don’t like you because they’re telling the truth and you’re saying they’re lying….SO EXHAUSTING.

Step Five: It can also go two ways. What should happen is the person you totally dogged should break the hell up with you and never look back because, somewhere along the relationship where they trusted you not to hurt them, you considered the alternative and chose it sending a pretty clear message that they didn’t mean enough (or anything) to you. In that case, they should demand more respect than that and realize you’re an idiot, because everyone should be the most important person to themselves (parents omitted). OR for some reason they take you back and it haunts your relationship forever. That means for the rest of the time you’re with that person, they may let it go temporarily, but it is ALWAYS going to get brought back up. And typically, it’s brought back up when you’re out trying to have a good time.

Think about how you can avoid that by just not being a scumbag moron in the first place. Don’t even put yourself in that position. Realize how important or unimportant they are to you first, then do what you gotta do. Breaking someone’s heart is hard enough; adding humiliation and unnecessary angst is just an asshole move. And then that’s who you become to people– just a big asshole no one likes.

This kind of thing follows you, too. The next person you want to be with, unless you move, is going to find out. Ever heard of six degrees of separation? Everyone knows everyone who knows someone else. Ever heard of the game telephone? By the time that story gets to the second, third, and fourth, party, it turns into you killing your ex’s dog and cheating on them with a transgender stripper.